Sound of Metal - 6 nominations

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year Bert Hamelinck (producer)  Sacha Ben Harroche (producer)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Riz Ahmed

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Paul Raci

Best Sound Nicolas Becker  Jaime Baksht  Michelle Couttolenc  Carlos Cortés Navarrete (as Carlos Cortés)  Phillip Bladh

Best Original Screenplay Darius Marder (screenplay by/story by)  Abraham Marder (screenplay by)  Derek Cianfrance (story by)

Best Achievement in Film Editing - Mikkel E.G. Nielsen

Sound of Metal is the unlikeliest of Best Picture nominees, and is one of my top 10 favorite films of 2020. Riz Ahmed plays Ruben, a heavy metal drummer on the road with his girlfriend and bandmate, when he notices that he has drastically lost most of his hearing.  This doesn't help his drug addiction and miraculously, he finds a deaf sober living community - one which can help him get clean and find his new life as a deaf man.  It is a place for him to learn sign language and deal with his demons.  When Ruben learns about cochlear implants - a very controversial and polarizing technology in the deaf community - his safe place makes it clear that this community is for deaf people only and if he is ready to make peace with his new life as a deaf man, he is welcome to stay, but if not, he must leave.  (For a more in depth view of the two sides of the cochlear implant debate and the discussion within the deaf community, see Oscar nominated documentary, Sound and Fury, available on Amazon Prime and for rent on Apple+.)

I've had a lifelong obsession with sign language and at one time in my life, could easily carry on a simple conversation in sign.  So yes, this movie already had very soft ground for me to like it.  But the performances delivered by Paul Raci (who looks like he has been signing his whole life) and Riz Ahmed bring the excellence of this movie to a whole new level.

Truthfully, when a friend recommended the film, I watched it because he said it was excellent, but I was skeptical.  I have no interest in heavy metal music.  Little did I know that this movie is a character study, it's about transformation; it's about what to hold onto and what to let go of, what to mourn and what to birth, about the difference between "making the best of it" and "making the most of it."  Maybe that's true for most stories dealing with addiction recovery, but this one is special.

If you have time to see only 3 films from the Oscars pool, this should be one of them.

Watch the trailer here.

Promising Young Woman - 5 nominations

Best Motion Picture of the Year Ben Browning (producer)  Ashley Fox (producer)  Emerald Fennell (producer)  Josey McNamara (producer)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Carey Mulligan

Best Achievement in Directing - Emerald Fennell

Best Original Screenplay - Emerald Fennell (written by)

Best Achievement in Film Editing - Frédéric Thoraval

Promising Young Woman tells the story of Cassandra (Carey Mulligan), a medical school dropout cum coffee barista who is handing out street justice to those involved in a trauma-inducing crime she and her best friend experienced while in medical school.  In the process, she has a little side hustle of trapping and scaring the hell out of potential rapists and self-defined "good guys" who take home drunk women that they might "get lucky" and luck themselves right into raping said women.  Cassandra won't stop until she has sought revenge against the rapist, the cheering by-standers, and those professionals in the college system who are impotent or unwilling to bring to account those who perpetrate criminal behavior; because it's difficult to prove, because it hurts the university's crime statistics, and worst of all... because the rapist has "such a promising future."

Sounds heavy, right?  Not so with this impressive film that manages to inspire emotions that run the gambit - there are really funny parts in this revenge movie.  There are tense parts, there are scary parts, there are emotional parts, and all of the parts merge to form a delicious whole.  Credit is due to Carey Mulligan who is so utterly likable and so brilliantly tactical that we root for her, even as she does her worst.  While I doubt that this film will win Best Picture, the screenplay has a shot.

I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that I used to work in student affairs and the professionals I know have always taken rape quite seriously as a crime, and my observation is that they put the students who report as their top priorities.  I worry that their good work comes into question with films like this, but having said that, there is enough evidence that many universities have failed in their duty of care for the students that this story is easily believable.  In fact, if this film speaks to you, I highly recommend another film called, "The Hunting Ground," for which Diane Warren and Lady Gaga received an Oscar nomination for Original Song.  This documentary captures the realities of rape on campus and what university administrators are doing - or not doing - about it.

Promising Young Woman is worth it for the performances alone, but is worthy of all nominations it has received.

Watch the trailer here.

 

Nomadland - 6 nominations

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year Frances McDormand (producer)  Peter Spears (producer)  Mollye Asher (producer)  Dan Janvey (producer)  Chloé Zhao (producer)

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role - Frances McDormand

Best Achievement in Directing - Chloé Zhao

Best Adapted Screenplay - Chloé Zhao (written for the screen by)

Best Achievement in Film Editing - Chloé Zhao

Best Achievement in Cinematography - Joshua James Richards

Sure, the film begins by setting the premise that a town shut down due to the Great Recession and gives the impression that Fern (Frances McDormand) is living in her van because of that.  Then we learn that her husband died and we start to think that grief sent her into a nomadic lifestyle - one that has her working seasonal gig jobs to earn enough money to live on, but nothing lucrative enough to support setting down roots and living in a permanent home or apartment.

Then the movie quietly unfolds as we see communities of people who live this way - as nomads - with intention.  The freedom, the open space, the room to breathe, the friends made along the way, these are what drive these people to drive.  There isn't a lot of dialogue which is just the playground for Frances McDormand to take her gorgeously weathered face and tell us everything we need to know.  We breathe as she breathes.  It is well known by now that many of the people featured in this film are authentic nomads.  Chloe Zhao is not the first to use real people in a film, but McDormand is one of the few great actors who looks and feels at home among them - she doesn't outshine them with her performance and the brilliance of it is that she adjusts to them, becoming one of them in a way that only an actor of her caliber can do.

I must make mention of the cinematography, the exquisite character brought to life in this film.  I'm not such a nature lover - I appreciate its beauty and then I go back to my hotel.  This film takes nature and elevates it to become a partner in the nomad's life.  The reason for the life and not the decoration of it.  My only disappointment with this film is that it was not nominated for Original Score, which perfectly adorns the backdrop of the story.

Nomadland is not only a best picture nominee, it's a best picture.  If you can only see three of the nominees this year, make Nomadland one of them.

See the trailer here.

Minari - 6 nominations

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year - Christina Oh (producer)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Steven Yeun

Best Achievement in Directing - Lee Isaac Chung

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Youn Yuh-jung

Best Original Screenplay - Lee Isaac Chung (written by)

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) - Emile Mosseri

A family whose father has big dreams moves to Arkansas.  They have been living in California with the parents working as "chicken sex-ers" and have also taken day jobs to do the same in their new small town.  (Chicken sexers are people who spend their days looking at baby chicks to figure out what gender the baby chicks are - a job that I, frankly, didn't even know existed.). But the father has also purchased a home with a field to create a small farm with Korean vegetables and fruits, counting on an idea that a growing Korean community in Arkansas would want access to their traditional foods with no local vendor to provide them freshly grown.  But the mom is not so sure about this idea, particularly because the town is quite far from quality medical care, and the small son has a serious heart murmur issue.  She invites her mother (who is a bit of a spitfire) to move in with them from Korea and now the family lives in an on-property trailer with three adults and two children.  

Minari is a story of dream-chasing, family relationships, and priority-setting.  This film has beautiful moments, gut wrenching moments, and everything in between.  It is the honest, funny, and sometimes tragic story of a family finding their place in the world.  It is about identity, but also about community.  At its core, it's about adult relationships and how people who love each other don't always actively value or invest in each other.  Minari is a quiet film and the acting (in two languages) is superb.  

While I doubt that it will win Best Picture, it's a lovely movie and I recommend it highly.

Watch the trailer here.

Mank - 10 nominations

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year Ceán Chaffin (producer)  Eric Roth (producer)  Douglas Urbanski (producer)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role - Gary Oldman

Best Achievement in Directing - David Fincher

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role - Amanda Seyfried

Best Sound Ren Klyce  Jeremy Molod  David Parker  Nathan Nance  Drew Kunin

Best Achievement in Production Design Donald Graham Burt (production design)  Jan Pascale (set decoration)

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Score) Trent Reznor  Atticus Ross

Best Achievement in Makeup and Hairstyling Gigi Williams  Kimberley Spiteri  Colleen LaBaff

Best Achievement in Costume Design - Trish Summerville

Best Achievement in Cinematography - Erik Messerschmidt

Mank is a highly stylized film following the life of Herman J Mankowicz - an aging, alcoholic screenwriter upon whom Orson Welles calls to write Citizen Kane. In the shadow of the rise of Nazi Germany and a controversial gubernatorial race, people read the script and see parallels between the protagonist and William Randolph Hearst, and the comparison is hardly flattering.  Through a relationship with Hearst's lover played adorably by Amanda Seyfried, Mank finds himself introduced to WRH and the fireworks ensue.  And honestly, that's just some of what happens in this overly long, somewhat disappointing film.

Don't get me wrong, I liked it, and I sat all the way through it (which is hardly a selling point). The black and white cinematography was a great choice for creating the setting, the style, and the tone bringing us back to the great black and white films of the 50's.  The costumes, production design, and hair styling do the same.

Have you ever watched a film that is so intentional but so over the top about being a period piece that you occasionally say out loud a real throwback Edward G Robinson-esque, "yeah, see" while the film plays on your screen?  (Just me? Cool cool cool.) If you never have, I swear while you watch this film, you will.  And yet, it's the most nominated film of the year.  

The parts are good - the cast is good, the directing is good, the design elements are good, and yet somehow, the whole is not as good as the sum of its parts.  Unless you feel passionately about seeing all of the nominated Best Picture films (an instinct I certainly understand), I wouldn't prioritize this one.  Instead, just watch Citizen Kane.  Now that's worth it.

To watch the trailer:

Judas and the Black Messiah - 6 nominations

 

Best Motion Picture of the Year Shaka King (producer)  Charles D. King (producer)  Ryan Coogler (producer)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - Daniel Kaluuya

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures (Original Song) H.E.R. (music by/lyric by)  D'Mile (as Dernst Emile II) (music by)  Tiara Thomas (lyric by)  For song "Fight for You"

Best Original Screenplay Will Berson (screenplay by/story by)  Shaka King (screenplay by/story by)  Kenneth Lucas (story by) (as Kenny Lucas)  Keith Lucas (story by)

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role - LaKeith Stanfield

Best Achievement in Cinematography - Sean Bobbitt

Thank you to IMDB for assembling this list.

Judas and the Black Messiah is a heartbreaking film following the infiltration of the Black Panthers by the CIA.  It follows two protagonists, Fred Hampton, the head of the Illinois chapter, and Bill O'Neal, a small time criminal forced into the role of informant in exchange for escape from prosecution.  The film decidedly shows how the Panthers were more than activists for societal change, but also revolutionaries who proposed the notion that a civil society takes care of its most vulnerable, and they were doing just that with food pantries, support for single mothers, and other charitable work.  And the film reminds us that after all the work that Bill O'Neal did to undermine the Panthers and to infiltrate them, he ultimately appeared to agree with their message and regretted what he had done for the rest of his life.

The cast of this film is volcanic - the two nominated actors, LaKeith Stanfield (Bill O'Neal) and Daniel Kaluuya (Fred Hampton, and formerly nominated for Get Out) are both powerful leads delivering career-making performances, and the supporting actor category is perplexing. It is not without precedent though for films to campaign for supporting role categorizations when they think there is a better chance for a win in the supporting category.  While the film is unlikely to win Best Picture, the performances by this group of actors is worth every moment of your time (including a very underused Martin Sheen as J. Edgar Hoover).

If you don't get chills listening to Fred Hampton leading a crowd chanting, "I am a revolutionary," you should have your heart checked.

I'm happy that the first movie about which I am posting is also a film "based on a true story."  It gives me the opportunity to remind my loyal readers of my yearly caution.  Narrative films are not documentaries.  Narrative filmmakers have no obligation to the facts nor the truth.  A couple of years ago, a Republican politician quoted Churchill as support for a position he was taking... a quote that turned out to be from the movie, "The Darkest Hour" and one that had been made up for the story - something that Churchill never said and in fact, reflected a position he never held.  If you are fired up by this film, I beg you to follow up with biographies, documentaries, and other accounts from those who were there, rather than taking the film narrative as gospel.  I won't continue to harp on this in other posts, but once a year I remind you of this dear readers, and I have now done so for 2021.  End of TED talk.  I have placed some superficially researched resources at the bottom of this post (meaning I haven't necessarily read the books or watched the films) for you to pursue if you loved the film.

The nominated song, "Fight For You" is not only brilliant but has a haunting drumbeat that reminds you of a heartbeat while it proclaims, "Freedom ain't free at all."  You can listen to the song here: https://youtu.be/exJq2NrAwdc

Watch the trailer: https://youtu.be/sSjtGqRXQ9Y

Want to know more?

Watch this! 

Amazon Prime has a documentary short called, "Death of a Black Panther: Fred Hampton"

Read this!

The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther by Jeffrey Haas

Read this!

Power to the People: The World of the Black Panthers by Bobby Seale and Stephen Shames

The Weirdest Oscars Year

Welcome back, friends, to another year in the wonderful world of outstanding movies.  Thank you to all of you who have followed my blog for so many years!  Today, I did a quick check of total views, and in all these years, I've had over 63,000 views, which means that my mother has not had much else to do all this time.

This is an interesting year for movies, given COVID-19 and the sad restrictions placed on movie theaters.  If there is anything I have missed, it's going to movies and talking about them intensely with friends (more on that another time...).  The upside of the downside has been the generosity of the studios in providing their content to streaming services, which means we got to watch all the best films from the comfort of our homes.  All year, in pre-supposing what the Oscars could or would do, I have been jokingly referring to "Best Picture, Sonic the Hedgehog" - the last film I remember being in actual theaters.

God bless the Academy for providing 40 full days to read and review all 56 nominated films, and if you're a fan like me, I know you have already knocked many of the movies nominated off of your "must see" lists.  I'm down to 11 feature films left, and most of the shorts, so I'm ready to get going with this year's Jodi's Oscars Blog! As always, I'm most grateful to those of you who read and share.  I do this because I love it and not for any other reason, so when people read the blog, it means the world to me. (bermanoscarblog.blogspot.com)

A couple of observations about this year's nominees.

1. Oh, you sneaky Academy.  We see that you have combined the Sound Mixing and Sound Editing categories into just one category: Sound.  I'm sure that eliminating that one category is really going to bring the length of the broadcast way down in time.  On the upside, it turns out that last year was the last year that I will ever explain the difference between mixing and editing to my wonderful readers.

2. I'm sure there will be lots and lots of Buzzfeed-type lists about surprises and snubs, but I'm devastated for Regina King, who I think delivered one of the finest directing debuts, and certainly one of the top 5 this year.  I'm thrilled to see more women nominated (should we be celebrating that this is the first time in 93 years that 2 actual women were nominated at the actual same time in this category, or should we just be seriously embarrassed?), but it should have been 3.  Regina, you're the winner in my eyes!

3. Speaking of things to celebrate and be embarrassed about, first time ever an Asian American lead actor has been nominated, and first woman of Asian descent to be nominated for directing.  Yes, to be celebrated but it took 93 years for that to happen?  Are we kidding?

4. Jingle Jangle should have had all the nominations.  Costume, score, song... and it got nothing.  Boo.  Boo, Academy, booooooo.  This would have won my Hidden Gem award, so please go watch it on Netflix.

5. Glenn Close got her 8th nom (never won) and Diane Warren got her 12th nom (never won), and I don't think their unlucky streaks are going to change this year.  It is a little funny that poor Glenn is once again up against Olivia Colman who snatched the gold from her hot little hands in 2019.

Tomorrow, I will start reviewing the Best Picture nominees and to borrow a cliche... HERE WE GO!